Skool's Out

Thursday was my last day of class. Turned in an updated demo reel, and a "Roboy" project the class as a whole was working on. Unfortunately it didn't get finished, but a few of us animators are going to continue work on it over the summer. I think in this class in particular, I've come a long way as an animator. Of course I still have tons to learn and much, much better to get... but I think I've improved more over the course of this last class than any of the previous once, since it was pretty much all my own work and not just tutorials or learning something followed by class assignments. Here's my current June 2013 reel:

Animation Reel - June 2013 from David Durston on Vimeo.


Quite an improvement, I'd say, over the last one just a few months ago:

Animation Reel - Spring 2013 from David Durston on Vimeo.

So now that's done and all the requirements for my AA in Animation are met. Just waiting for it now I suppose. I'll probably go back every now and then and take a class here and there, but in other fields that interest me like Motion Graphics and Compositing.

For now and over the summer... my first order of business is to finish up all the animations I need to do for this game Elyot I've been helping out with. Just yesterday for my first time I rigged some first-person arms and made the first sword animations for it. Once Elyot is done, I can happily go back to and start working on my own game projects again.

Of course, all the while I'm gonna still be trying to crank out new animations for my reel and otherwise as often as I can!

Busy Busy Busy

So, as a lack of posts for the last 3 weeks may have indicated, I'm taking a good break from NavTac because I just don't have time to be doing all the art and programming for it. I've actually decided to try and find a programmer to help finish it and that way I can focus on the art, along with having enough time for all the other things I'm doing.

Yesterday I caught up with class work and submitted the first versions of my portfolio site and demo reel, which are at www.durstonart.com right now, though I may change the url to just be my name. Over the next 2 weeks I'll be refining both the site, the reel, and working on some new animations - including what will be my first attempt at making an animation for the 11 Second Club monthly competition. To add to the list, I finally have time to and will resume working on animal animations for the game I've been helping out with, Elyot and the Island of Pongo.

That's all for now. Since I'm not writing near-daily or weekly logs for NavTac currently, my next post will hopefully include some new animation.